Verdad Magazine Volume 9

Fall 2010, Volume 9

Fiction by Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue

Finding Bliss, Finally

Herr Goebbels’ first clue that it was going to be one of those days were the boxes of files piled on his desk, all labeled in block letters, “THE GARDEN OF EDEN.”

“Frau Buscher!” Herr Goebbels, who was not even distantly related to the propaganda wizard (for he had checked), called, “What are all these verdammt boxes on my desk for?”

Frau Buscher, Herr Goebbels’ secretary, then appeared at the doorway and, in her usual prim way, chided him, “Do not curse so early in the morning, Herr Goebels. You know it is so bad for one’s heart and so inappropriate for an official of the Third Reich.”

Then she set a cup of coffee in front of him made just the way he liked, black with two lumps of sugar. And after allowing him a few minutes to drain half a cup, so as “to clear the cobwebs” as she always said, she answered his question, “They’re from Herr Koehler. He wants you to work on a project. He said it is very urgent.”

Then with a few bends of her efficient, if not particularly attractive, knees, she set the offensive boxes on an ornate table where an autographed photo of der Fuehrer and his favorite German Shepherd, Rex sat surveying Herr Goebbels’ office. After completing her task, she set the framed photo face down on one of the boxes.

“Probably der Fuehrer wouldn’t like to see you in such a huff,” she remarked. Then turned and in her sweetest Westphalian accent declared, “I’ll hold all your calls for two hours, so that you will have sufficient time to examine the contents of these boxes. Good luck and remember, this is urgent!”

“Urgent-smurgent,” Herr Goebbels said to the now-empty doorway. “My chest hurts! My sinuses are a wreck, and I’ve got a secretary who’s not only a slave driver but who’s built like a bricklayer! Ah, but what does Herr Koehler care? I’m exiled to the bloody Garden of Eden for two hours, and me, an atheist, imagine!”

Two hours later, Herr Goebbels was still at his desk, his eyes following the billowing clouds of cigarette smoke to the ceiling. A wistful smile now played across his lips as his right hand caressed the stacks of files on his desk.

He took a deep drag on his cigarette. Then after ballooning his cheeks, he blew
smoky halos that floated weightlessly to the ceiling. He’d seen it in an American movie.

Who could remember the actor, some rich Hollywood debauchee playing the tough gangster type, totally unbelievable, but Herr Goebbels could never forget how the actor blew halos of smoke.

It had taken him a dozen afternoons and almost as many packs of cigarettes, but he’d learned to do it, to make something angelic out of something vile. And the truly remarkable thing was that same miracle was repeated today.

Because from the filthy and dusty Garden of Eden files had come the most heavenly dream. His future, his bliss—the life he was always meant for—was within his grasp, and his past, where he’d been only a sleepwalker forced to babble bureaucratic inanities, was dropping from him like a snake in heat sheds its skin.

It wasn’t due to the Garden of Eden files being such stimulating reading. In truth, the files were no more than dreary, bureaucratic prose put out by a party hack and eugenicist with the pretentious moniker, Erich Von Zachanaegel. In fact, the writing was so comically boring it was all Herr Goebbels could do to stifle his laughter. But he could see clearly that beyond the typed words was a world for which he’d always longed.

In fact, for the first time in his life he felt totally and entirely calm because now and only now had his purpose in life finally been revealed to him. He shook his head and sighed when thinking back to only two hours before when he’d been merely a harried bureaucrat, not the possessor of a bliss that now made him excited as he’d never been before. All because of the wunderbar Garden of Eden Project.

In his journey through the endless reports and the most minutest of minutes,
he’d learned that this project was first conceived, now that was an appropriate word, he thought with a loud snort, in 1933 but had remained dormant due to a lack of resources. Until now. Now that the Berlin Olympics were a mere nine months away, the project was receiving top funding, and if the reports were to be believed, interest from the very, very, very top. Yes, Rex’s playmate was now rumored to be extremely intrigued by this project.

And why not? Stated simply, The Garden of Eden Project’s mission was to bring the most physically attractive Aryan women from all over Greater Germany to take part in “sexual intercourse,” as the leaden prose put it, with the greatest Aryan athletes of the world during the 1936 Olympics.

Herr Goebbels smiled as he realized that at The Garden of Eden Park just outside the Olympic Village there’d take place no shot put or 1,000 meter relays but an Orgasm Olympics where the only medal was conception. Thereafter, the 1000-year Reich would provide for free prenatal care and birth. Then the products of those nocturnal and robust rendezvous would further strengthen Germany by producing blonder, more beautiful, and, of course, purer Aryans.

In the files, he saw more than a promise of a better position than assistant sports commissioner. His joining the party had been nothing but sheer opportunism. He could no sooner believe in Nazism than God, but the idea of dozens of nude, nubile blonds walking, bending, laying, stretching all in a sylvan setting—now that brought something akin to the intensity of faith in him. A better position, indeed! Many, in fact.

“Now that’s my idea of paradise, not some silly story about two rubes and a walking snake,” Herr Goebbels chuckled, taking another long drag on his cigarette.

He imagined a blond maiden from Frankfurt. Her once pale cheeks now red amidst the dandelions and rye grass. All from foreplay from a strong, barrel-chested
shot putter. Or, was it instead Herr Goebbels coming from behind her as she bathed in a pond? He would lather her breasts, then slowly one hand would sneak down the roundness of her belly to rub her soft bush of pubic hair till his forefinger found her spot and her bottom ground into him.

“Herr Goebbels,” Frau Buscher interrupted him in her usual indecorous way, “wake up! Herr Koehler is here, and by the way, you are drooling.”

Herr Goebbels took out his handkerchief, spotted his mouth, took a deep breath, and then prepared to finally and irrevocably find his bliss for which he had always without a scintilla of hope searched.

BIO: For the past fifteen years, Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue and his wife have called Fort Worth, Texas home. Here he is an English-as-a-Second Language teacher at Amon Carter-Riverside High School, sort of the quintessential inner-city high school.
When not teaching, he's usually writing. Most recently he has had poems published in Big Land, Big Sky, Big Hair: Best of the Texas Poetry Calendar and The Texas Observer.
Besides that, his essays have appeared in The Texas Observer, The San Antonio Express-News, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Dallas Peace Times, and The Fort Worth Weekly.
Finally, his stories have been published in Lynx Eye, Hardboiled, and the on-line literary journals Scrivener's Pen and SouthLit.com.